hypochondria

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. The persistent conviction that one is or is likely to become ill, often involving symptoms when illness is neither present nor likely, and persisting despite reassurance and medical evidence to the contrary. Also called hypochondriasis.

n. Plural of hypochondrium.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A psychological disorder characterized by excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness.

n. Plural form of hypochondrium.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. An excessive concern about one's own health, particularly a morbid worry about illnesses which a person imagines are affecting him, often focusing on specific symptoms; also called hypochondriasis.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. A morbid condition characterized by exaggerated uneasiness and anxiety as to one's health, and also by extreme general depression; low spirits: in this sense often abbreviated hypo, or formerly hyp, hip. See hypo. hip.

Etymologies

Late Latin, abdomen, from Greek hupokhondria, pl. of hupokhondrion, abdomen (held to be the seat of melancholy), from neuter of hupokhondrios, under the cartilage of the breastbone : hupo-, hypo- + khondros, cartilage; see ghrendh- in Indo-European roots.

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From Medieval Latin hypochondria ("the morbid condition so called, supposed to have its seat in the upper part of the abdomen"), from New Latin hypochondrium (see hypochondrium for more). (Wiktionary)

Examples

In fact, hypochondria is the one thing I don’t suffer from. trigger points legs and hips; slouching hip pain; copper for hip joint pain; right hip aches in bed; something wrong with my hip down to my knee; I have two extra bones in my hip; pain down right leg also hip;

It seems more like an extreme manifestation of something along the lines of what's often called hypochondria or somatoform pain disorder -- which is not at all the same as 'faking it,' but still nothing like what goes on in gender dysphoria -- and has more, in fact, in common with eating disorders generally.

After puberty, and during early adolescence, when a certain amount of knowledge has been acquired, we leave youth free to learn lies from advertisements, carefully calculated to foster the tendency to hypochondria, which is often associated with such matters.

Sometimes it manifests itself in the milder forms of hallucination, or monomania, but in the majority of cases, the patient sinks into a despondent hypochondria, which is many times followed, sooner or later, by a raving mania.

Word visualization

Comments

The term hypochondria was coined by the ancient Greeks from Hypo = below + Chondros = cartilage (of the ribs). It was their opinion that the set of symptoms originated just below the ribs (i.e. in the upper abdomen). So, sit up straight and don't slouch. They also believed that the psychological symptoms which often accompanied the ailment were the result of the illness. See: cyberchondria.